Glad I Stopped Reading!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Blogging, Reading
Love Bites gives a synopsis of the first three all four Twilight books.
Edit: Katie informed me that the above actually mentions events in book four, which caused me to accidentally give her a spoiler. Whoops!
It’s a really, really good thing I stopped reading after book two. I’m absolutely disgusted!
Happily, the book I’m reading to review for TCM is quite good. I’m a wee bit distracted by the author’s Very Silly Name–I don’t know if it’s a pen name or if she had cruel parents. It doesn’t change the fact that the book is enjoyable.
Tags: Stephanie Meyer, TCM, Twilight
Drama Circuits Still Overloaded
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading
My real-life drama tolerance circuits were totally burned out with marriage v.3. I’m cool with that. I was able to handle much more of it in fiction, though I’m not big on whiney characters.
I guess the Stephanie Meyer backlash is still with me, though, because after finishing the fifth of Laura Anne Gilman’s Retriever novels, Falling Free, I tried reading Anne Bishop’s Tangled Webs.
I just started reading Bishop earlier this year, and truly enjoyed the earlier Realms of the Blood books. I did notice that everybody in the books is more than slightly high-strung, and that (as is so often the case), good communication skills would have largely removed most the plot premises.
I mean, yeah, evil people plot, what are you going to do about it? Stick together and talk to the people you care about, dammit! Never believe you’ve been betrayed without doing some fact-checking, at the very least!
But I just got a few chapters into Tangled Webs, and there they go again. I think lithium needs to be added into the water table of this universe.
I’m disappointed, because I do enjoy many things about Bishop’s writing. Maybe I’ll give that one another try someday in the future. For now, it goes back to the library.
Greywalker by Kat Richardson is next on the stack!
Tags: Anne Bishop, Kat Richardson, Laura Anne Gilman, Stephanie Meyer
Review: New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Book Reviews, Reading
I finished reading New Moon, which was much, much more dramatic (emotionally) than Twilight. As in, Bella goes into a zombie state for months, and the book just has blank pages with the names of each month as place holders–October, November, December, January, etc. I (and most everyone I know) have handled divorce better than this kid handles a teenage breakup! And her parents never put her in therapy why? (I think she should have been in-patient, myself.)
I couldn’t let go enough to read this book from the intended audience’s perspective. I kept thinking that there’s no way I’d let a child of mine get involved with anyone so clingy. She wants to be with a guy 24/7, and no, I am not exaggerating at all. These books are a case study of dependent personality disorder. The fact that they are so incredibly popular is worrisome to me.
Tags: Stephanie Meyer
Sunday Night
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Critters, Family, Reading
Yes, I’m boring. I hate trying to think of titles for posts.
The girl is off visiting, having left yesterday afternoon. Her cat is frantic. He is very much attached to HER, not US. So whenever she leaves the house, he goes nuts, gets terribly anxious, and is certain that she’ll never, ever come back. He spends most of his time sitting in the front windows or sniffing under the front door, trying to detect her return.
Shelley never freaked like that, but then Katie visited Atlanta once a week pretty much every week from the time she was a few weeks old ‘til they moved here with me. She knew the girl would always come back. And Shelley was with me for a year before Katie was born, and attached to both of us. Kioshi is just a one-person cat. I should make that a one-girl cat, as he isn’t big on males at all.
I read the first of Laura Anne Gilman’s Retriever novels, Staying Dead. Fun stuff, and I think many of you would enjoy it. Then I went on to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Katie was so excited about it that I had to see what the big deal was. She finished that huge sucker in a day or so. I took a little longer, but then I wasn’t the one checking the library’s hold queue several times a day.
I can see why the series is such a huge hit with some teenage girls, but I don’t think it will carry nearly as much popularity with any other age group or males, period. There’s too much “oh, I’m bad for you” angsting from the vampire (male romantic lead). Seriously–he beats David Boreanz’s Angel all to pieces on the brooding, and that takes some doing.
The main character, Bella, is annoying to me because she’s pretty damned useless. She honestly can’t be trusted to walk down a hallway with no obstacles without hurting herself. She’s not creative or particularly intelligent, shows no particular talents of any sort–a beige person, in my mind. What’s there to like?
I took a break and read Curse The Dark (second of the Retriever series) before starting New Moon, but I did start it. And damn, it’s even more emotionally dramatic.
I’m not sure I’ll read the other two books whenever we get hold of them (I’m not sure the fourth is even out yet). I know that Katie will, though. The series isn’t written badly, but I’m way out of the target audience.
Tags: Katie, Kyoshi, Laura Anne Gilman, Stephanie Meyer
What? Huh?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Reading
There was something specific I was going to post. I know it. I remember thinking, “Oh, yeah, I want to blog about that!” But I didn’t do it immediately and now, of course, it’s gone, gone, gone. Blah.
So, instead, you get a little hodge-podge update of books and pictures. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Adrienne Barbeau, Botticelli, C.E. Murphy, Laura Anne Gilman, Laura Resnick, Michael Scott, Modigliani, Mucha, Patricia Briggs, photomanipulation, Stephanie Meyer